This month, SAS is celebrating 50 years of air service between Copenhagen and Chicago.

SAS launched the Copenhagen to Chicago route with a maiden flight to O’Hare International Airport on April 2, 1964. Captain Jens Mueller flew passengers and crew in a DC-8-33 to Chicago via Montreal, sowing the seeds for a successful route, which has since been operated by aircraft including the DC-10, Boeing 767 and Airbus 330/340. More than three million people have flown this route with SAS, and today the airline flies directly from Copenhagen and Stockholm to Chicago.

“On behalf of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, I want to thank and congratulate SAS on 50 years of service at Chicago O’Hare International Airport,” said Rosemarie S. Andolino, Commissioner, Chicago Department of Aviation. “As Chicago continues to evolve as a leading global city, the CDA looks forward to growing international service at our airports together with our partner airlines including SAS.”

This year, SAS is continuing to increase its traffic, adding five weekly departures and a new route to the U.S.

“SAS is seeing a steady growth in demand for travel to the USA – and the reverse route from the US to Scandinavia, not least from Chicago, is also proving a success. That’s no real surprise either, as SAS is the airline with the most destinations and flights to the US from Scandinavia. Now we are adding even more departures, to the delight of customers throughout Scandinavia, who use SAS and our services to make traveling easy and comfortable,” said Rickard Gustafson, President and CEO of SAS.

SAS offers a direct route between Copenhagen and Chicago with one dailly flight and flies from Stockholm to Chicago daily in the summer and five times a week in winter. SAS is adding another winter departure to Chicago from Stockholm.

SAS is one of more than 30 international airlines that operate at O’Hare Terminal 5.